Does (food) history repeat?

Britannia Bites" by IAN JACK, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, December 9, 2007.

This is a review of TASTE: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking, by Kate Colquhoun.

I found this interesting. The review suggests that British food was terrible for a couple of centuries -- nothing new there. The authors identifies some causes. The British economy went from an agricultural one to a manufacturing one. People moved from farms to factories. Food was therefore imported, and the canned foods developed in the 19th century tasted bad. British factory workers were overwhelmed with work outside the home, and forgot how to cook. British cooking, which was simple and based on fresh local ingredients could not evolve fast enough to hide the bad taste of the imported, old and poorly preserved new ingredients.

Things are better now, and food processing technology has made ingredients taste better than in the bad days of canning. The better food that was found in middle and upper class homes in the past can now be found more widely in Britain. New immigrants have brought their cuisine to the British Isles.

I wonder if the peoples with emerging economies are going to go through the same process. Will the Chinese who are leaving their rural homes for factory jobs in the city see the quality of their food decrease? Or will the improved 21st century technology save them from the fate of the 19th century British working class?